The New Oppression Olympics

Today in religious persecution, hardware store owner and Baptist minister Jeff Amyx has been getting some attention for putting a sign in his store window which reads, “No Gays Allowed.”

“They gladly stand for what they believe in, why can’t I? They believe their way is right, I believe it’s wrong. But yet I’m going to take more persecution than them because I’m standing for what I believe in,” Amyx said.

There’s something interestingly revealing in that statement, even though Amyx is probably not conscious of it. We’ll come back to it.

[Which is a viewpoint that conflates the radical views of the far right with ALL Christians, a premise that I refuse to accept at this blog. Though I am not a person of faith, I recognize that there are a variety of religious beliefs on the matter, even if the straight-and-narrow-minded claim to speak for everyone.]

Often, the rhetoric even co-opts things like racially-motivated terrorism at a Charleston church and / or attacks perpetrated by ISIS in the Middle East as a way of elevating mocking, criticism and anger in a way that makes it sound violent. And worthy of the latter being investigated and prosecuted as hate crimes.

The persecution in question will apparently take the form of Christians having to do business with LGBT people — baking cakes for weddings, being hired as photographers, employing or working with them, and other horrors. People For the American Way details how much of this has evolved:

“None of these stories is true. But each has become a stock tale for Religious Right broadcasters, activists, and in some cases elected officials. These myths – which are becoming ever more pervasive in the right-wing media – serve to bolster a larger story, that of a majority religious group in American society becoming a persecuted minority, driven underground in its own country…”

And if it can be made to sound like religious people are forced out of business (even temporarily), then so much the better, it would seem. In March, owners of a pizzeria chose to close their doors for a few days after the backlash over their declaration that they would not cater functions for LGBT couples. A crowdfunding effort rewarded them with over $840,000 for their troubles. Since then, a few others have been inspired to try the same thing, although it hasn’t always gone as well.

Far right leaders are calling for “civil disobedience” in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality, and the implication seems to be that said “civil disobedience” is firstly (but perhaps not only) meant to take the form of denial of service to LGBT people out of concern for their religious conscience. For this, though, they need congregants to take the risks of discrimination suits, rather than themselves. As Roger Waters once put it: the bravery of being out of range.

In early 2015, a massive backlash from the corporate sector occurred when Indiana passed a “religious freedom” bill which would have essentially legalized discrimination in cases where religious belief is a factor (something that could affect far more than LGBT people). The same thing occurred the year before, in Arizona. But after those failed attempts, there’s renewed calls for passing a similar bill federally. I guess the strategy goes like this: “they can’t refuse to do business in all the country…” Which in a way, is kind of ironic, and says something about who is accustomed to enfranchisement and who still isn’t.

This all brings us back to Jeff Amyx:

“They gladly stand for what they believe in, why can’t I? They believe their way is right, I believe it’s wrong. But yet I’m going to take more persecution than them because I’m standing for what I believe in,” Amyx said.

Because he obviously believes that the criticisms that he will receive — and at worst a human rights complaint or lawsuit — clearly outweigh the stigma he’s attempting to perpetuate, the deliberate denial of service, and any other similar denials he inspires. It’s a weird game of oppression olympics to try to win public sentiment back to the side of a far right fringe that believes treating a group of people as second-class citizens in the name of Jesus is a noble thing to do. Or even criminalizing them in the name of Jesus:

“… on yesterday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” FRC senior fellow Peter Sprigg… criticized Randy Berry, the Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons, for reportedly traveling to travel to Uganda and Jamaica, where homosexuality is also criminalized.

“Sprigg said that Berry and the Obama administration are trying to “force this American-style homosexual agenda down the throats of other countries” such as Uganda, “which is one of the countries which has been most bitterly attacked by homosexual activists around the world…”

2 thoughts on “The New Oppression Olympics”

The one thought among many, that struck me is this. Are these people such as Amyx inviting their own discrimination so they can cry wolf? In every case of “civil disobedience” are they not impacting their own livelihoods? I don’t think so.

For instance, Amyx own grounds of Grainger Tenn. has a population of approx. 27,000 spread over the entire county. How many LGBT people would he encounter, and of those, how many would be purchasing at his store that appears to be primarily contractor oriented? Using a 6% population ratio, there would be approx. 1600 LGBT people. How many of those would run around screaming I’m gay? So, the question of how would he know if they are gay or not has to come to the fore. Likely the only ones he might recognize would be trans and that would (again using standardized ratios of .5%) would yield 135. Of those using a 50/50 split he might encounter 63, if they had the funds to support themselves and assuming all 63 are out which is extremely unlikely.

This is a pure publicity stunt that once again, media have been taken in hook line and sinker. This isn’t civil disobedience at all; it is media manipulation on a national scale to forward a far right agenda that has nothing to do with religion. If it was religious he would also refuse to serve Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs among others because they are not Christian.

Once again the media falls sucker to the far right, just as they did with Jenner. These are self serving agendas with free publicity, not serving the greater good.